Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) unveiled a number of new features on the Messenger Platform for bot developers last week. These features are aimed at making conversation technology more accessible to users. The updates include a rating system for users and pre-set reply buttons to help make bot interactions more seamless and intuitive, reports Business Insider.
Updates to Facebook Messenger
Facebook is uniting the accessibility of chatbots and conversational responsiveness with the intuitive interface of apps. The company hopes the additions and updates to the bot interface will incentivize further engagement with users, thus luring more developers to the platform.
Ratings is one of the most important updates to Messenger. Now users can provide open-text feedback and star ratings for bot developers, assisting them in getting a better feel for how to improve their software. Another important feature is Quick Replies, which are pre-assigned action buttons that developers can roll out to assist users in navigating their bots. The buttons will help in signposting the bot’s capabilities as well. Many users do not know what types of tasks bots are capable of or what they have to type to interact with bots. These problems are solved by this feature.
Another feature, Persistent Menus, is a list of up to five commands that developers can keep in the chat interface. With the help of this, users will have no need to remember text commands. Facebook also introduced Account Linking, a secure protocol that allows brands and businesses to connect existing customers’ accounts with their Messenger accounts. A business will be able to see if the user is already an account holder when a consumer starts a conversation.
A few key takeaways for messaging apps
Will McKitterick, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, compiled a detailed report on messaging apps. This report examines the size of the messaging app market, the types of opportunities for monetization that have emerged from increasing the audience, and changes in applications.
As per McKitterick’s report, there are many Messaging apps, and the largest services have millions of monthly active users (MAU). Cheaper devices, improved features and falling data prices are assisting in their growth. Growth was the main focus in the first stage of the chat app revolution. In the next phase, companies started focusing on building their services and monetizing their chat apps’ large user bases.
More than 11,000 bots have been released on Messenger since its launch in April, but this is only a small step forward from the 10,000 bots that the social media giant reported in May.
